


duende

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Embarrassed Sherlock, F/M, First Kiss, Happy Ending, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:59:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4779773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is a man of many talents, and artistically drawing is among them, though for many years he let it lapse. The first evening after the Fall he gets the urge to draw Molly, and it’s an urge he find doesn’t go away, which is fine…at least until Molly finds the pictures drawn of her a week before Christmas. But her reaction surprises him and gives him hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	duende

**Author's Note:**

> So I was supposed to be writing fluffy romantic Sherlolly for a friend and I ended up writing this instead (hopefully now that this is out of my system I can). This was inspired by a prompt from **otpprompts** that went _Imagine person A of your OTP being an artist and drawing pictures of person B and hiding them in a drawer. Person B discovers them and person A is really embarrassed._

  
**DUENDE**

**Syllabification:** duen•de   
**Pronunciation:** /do͞oˈendā/   
**Origin:** 1920s: from Spanish, contraction of _duen de casa_ , from _dueño de casa_ ‘owner of the house.’ 

_Noun_   
_a quality of passion and inspiration; the mysterious power of art to deeply move a person_

His mother had tried, when her sons were young, to cultivate in them a deep and abiding love of the arts. It didn’t really take with Mycroft or his other brother, but it did with him, to an extent. He could appreciate beauty in music, in theatre and opera, in fine art and sculpture. And while it was only music that truly stirred his soul, when his mother saw an appreciation for the arts that was close to her own she attempted to mold him in her likeness.

That, it turned out, had been a mistake.

He had rebelled against her every choice. She had wanted him to sing, as she was convinced he had the voice of an angel. He turned to musical instruments instead. She wanted him to become a piano prodigy. He found he preferred the violin. She wanted him to tread the boards on the west end. He preferred to use his skills at creating new personas to blend into unfamiliar territory and glean details to be used to solve criminal cases of various sizes. When he was fourteen she gave up entirely, washing her hands of the whole business of molding him to her liking.

It was just as well he had ever so carefully hidden his sketches.

He had a rather rough talent, not wanting to show too much promise, otherwise drawing the unwanted attention of his mother, but also not wanting to not learn from his betters. He pretended to sit in boredom at art lectures and workshops, always making sure his work was subpar, but when he was at home with all the privacy he could garner he worked at the skills he had picked up, practicing them in solitude until he felt he had mastered them. He took great care not to show the world, because he wanted his love of art to remain just that: _his_ love. He didn’t want it spoiled or sullied.

As he got older, though, he wanted some validation, some notion he actually had talent. When he was in university he shared it with his dorm roommate, Victor, who raved and raved about it. He was good at keeping it between them, and it was nice to have an audience, to have someone to share it with. He felt the vindication he had talent and that he’d managed to do it all on his own, without the interference or hindrance of a meddlesome mother.

But Victor wasn’t the best of influences, and by the time he left uni he’d gotten into some bad habits, gotten into a bit more than he could handle. He’d used his skills as an artist to make enough money to get his next fix, until even then it wasn’t reliable enough. Until his hands couldn’t stop shaking and he couldn’t focus enough to draw straight lines. Then he resorted to other, less legal means. By the time Mycroft rounded him up and forced him to rehab he’d wanted to wash his hands of all of it, including his art. It was in the past, he told himself, and it deserved to stay there and rot.

And he let himself believe that for years and years, until he fell from St Barts roof. 

He’d asked Molly for paper and a pen or pencil. He’d told her it didn’t matter the type or quality, but she’d gotten him a decent enough pen, the type with a sharp tip, and nice thick stationary paper. He suspected she thought he was going to write a note. He considered writing something, actually, but the sight of Molly asleep on her sofa, quilt haphazardly pulled up to her waist with her cat balanced on her hip…it was a sight that had made his palm itch with the need to hold the pen and draw it. He did a rough sketch, noting that his skill had diminished in the years but not to the point it was overly noticeable to someone who didn’t know better. He’d considered leaving it somewhere for her to find but in the end folded it up and stuck it in the pocket of his Belstaff. He was gone a few days later and when his fingers brushed it as he left her flat he knew he was going to keep drawing to keep his sanity.

He drew people and places from memory, leaving the sketches behind for the cleaning crews and new tenants to do with as they pleased. He signed none of them, but in all of them, hidden somewhere, were his full initials, W.S.S.H. He drew everyone he knew, but he found himself drawn to drawing Molly the most. He wasn’t quite sure why. She wasn’t the most attractive person he knew, not stereotypically speaking; The Woman was actually more striking. If he wanted to draw someone who brought out fond feelings he could have easily drawn Mrs. Hudson; she was, after all, a second mother to him. But he kept being drawn back to Molly, even when he wasn’t drawing from a particular moment in his mind.

He’d pondered on that, but he knew there was a good chance she’d moved on from him. Had to, to keep up the façade. And he wouldn’t have blamed her one bit if Mycroft had kept mum on the details, which he found out was exactly the case when he came back. Two years and his brother had been as quiet on the matter as a eunuch. Perhaps if Molly had had some hope she wouldn’t have. But she hadn’t known, and she’d moved on to _him_ , that Tom person, and he had to be happy for her.

At least in public.

In private he kept drawing her, drawing now from new moments, new encounters. The years had only made her better, made her lovelier but given her a stronger backbone. He admired that about her and wanted to capture it. If he couldn’t be around her, be with her, he could at least have a part of her to himself, saved forever on paper. Perhaps if he was brave enough he might present them to her when she got closer to her own wedding as a gift, for her to do with what she chose. That would be his catharsis, his letting go of what could have been. But for now the drawings, or at least the important ones, resided in a desk drawer in the sitting room.

He’d called her over for her help. It was a week till Christmas, a week till his plan would go into motion. A week since Mary had shot him. That had not been his finest day, he thought to himself. Molly had had every right to be upset with him but she seemed fine now. The fact Molly agreed to come over meant, he hoped, that she had forgiven him. He had already ordered all of her favorite takeaway and it was waiting with plates and cutlery nearby. Now he just needed her.

He heard the door open and he lifted his head up to glance at the watch on his wrist. Just a few minutes later than anticipated. “Molly?” he called out.

“Yeah,” she called back. “Did you get Chinese?”

“I thought we could have dinner while we puzzled this problem out,” he said.

“You mean you coming up with a sleeping draught that won’t harm a pregnant woman,” she said flatly. His eyes widened. “The bloke who was in with you at the labs…he ran into me at the canteen yesterday. Made a few comments, and I put two and two together.”

Sherlock sighed. “And you won’t help,” he said.

“Not until you tell me what’s going on,” she replied. “And the whole, honest-to-God truth.”

“Very well,” he said. “Over in the desk there’s a file. That will explain the crux of the problem.” She set her handbag in the chair as he went into the kitchen to begin serving up the food. He happened to glance toward the desk in time to see her open the drawer with her drawings, and his eyes went wide. “Don’t!”

It was too late, though. She picked up one of them and studied it, turning to him with wide eyes of her own. “That’s me,” she said.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Yes,” he mumbled, looking at the ground.

She turned back to the drawer, pulling out a few more pictures. “They’re…all me,” she said softly. “And they’re…they’re beautiful.” She looked through them for a moment more, then moved over to him. “Sherlock, did you draw those?”

He nodded, his body betraying him by the tips of his ears turning slightly red. “Yes,” he replied, not looking up.

“You’re very talented,” she said. “And to think I didn’t pose for any of them. You did those from memory?

“Yes,” he said, just turning redder at the praise.

She was quiet for a moment. “Why didn’t you ever show me?” she asked gently.

“I only started doing it again after the fall,” he replied, beginning to move around her. “I draw all sorts of people, but it keeps coming back to you. You’re burned in my memory, more than anyone else, with your...your…garish jumpers and your penchant for ponytails and your beautiful smile and your kind eyes, and I can’t stop drawing you. I want to draw the curve of your neck and the curl of your lips and the gleam in your eyes and—” He stopped moving when she moved in front of him, reaching forward and embracing him. “Molly?”

“I’m your muse,” she said, her voice muffled slightly since her lips were almost on his chest.

He relaxed a bit and then put his arms around her. “Yes, I suppose you are,” he said. “When I look at you, I want to be…better, for you. You inspire me. And I want to put what I see down on paper so that when I look at what I’ve drawn I’m reminded of it time and again.”

“I think that’s quite lovely,” she said, looking up at him with a smile. 

“You do?” he asked, a small grin forming on his face.

She nodded. “I do.” She let go of him and he frowned at that, only for his grin to come back when she put her arms around his neck. “You do realize that some of those pictures are going to be coming home with me, right?”

“I surmised as much,” he said, hesitating a moment before moving his hands to her waist.

“Well, I may pose for you so that you can have replacements,” she said, her smile widening. “I suppose I should kiss you for inadvertently telling me the best thing a man has ever told me, even if you didn’t actually say it.”

“I would like that,” he said, leaning in slightly.

“Then who am I to say no?” she murmured before leaning in herself and closing the gap between him, kissing him softly. He pulled her close against him as he deepened the kiss and he relished the feeling of her tightening her hold on him. Things might go to hell within the next week but at least for now they were good, and he would try to cling to that as much as he could for as long as possible.


End file.
